NEXTFOOD will drive the crucial transition to more sustainable and competitive agrifood and forestry systems development by designing and implementing education and training systems to prepare budding or already practicing professionals with competencies to push the green shift in our rapidly changing society. NEXTFOOD will challenge the linear view of knowledge transfer as a top-down process from research to advice and practice, and support the transition to more learner-centric, participatory, action-based and action-oriented education and learning in agrifood and forestry systems. In several pioneering case studies, covering agrifood and forestry systems in Europe, Asia and Africa, farmers solve real challenges related to sustainability together with researchers, students and other relevant stakeholders while developing both green technical skills and soft collaborative competencies. NEXTFOOD will assure quality in research and education by creating a peer-review system for evaluation of practice-oriented research outputs focusing on sustainability and practical usefulness. In addition, we will develop an international accreditation framework for education and training in fields relevant to sustainable agrifood and forestry systems. An innovative action research process will guide the NEXTFOOD project’s development in a cyclical manner, ensuring that the research process and actual case studies are ever-improving. This will exemplify how practice-oriented research can be instrumental to achieve: better collaboration between university and society, more innovation in the agrifood and forestry systems sector, and a progressive agrifood community ready to tackle complex sustainability challenges of the 21st century

The WASTELESS project will develop and test a mix of innovative tools and methodologies for Food Loss and Waste (FLW) measurement and monitoring. A bottom-up approach will be followed: starting from defining an harmonised methodological framework and set of standards for the testing activities, the evaluation of the tools implementation and the quality and integrability of the data produced in other frameworks and finally recommend sustainable policies and business strategies to set the ground for a harmonised Framework at EU level. Additionally to the measurement and monitoring tools, WASTELESS will carry research activities on innovative processes and streams to valorise unavoidable FLW. With the ambition to make existing FLW quantification solutions and WASTELESS ones usable by all food actors, it will be developed a Decision Support Toolbox for any stakeholders to access to the most appropriate methodology, digital tools and solutions for FLW valorisation all that aggregated with the Environmental and Socio-Economic impact associated to the implementation of the solutions. This will enable the replication of data collection hubs accross Europe feeding the model developed by JRC with robust, reliable and comparable FLW data.

FAIRCHAIN addresses the growing need for a significant transformation of current food systems by developing competitive intermediate food chain alternatives adapted to small and mid-sized actors. FAIRCHAIN specifically aims to: -Foster the emergence of innovative intermediate food value chains that support the scaling-up of small and mid-sized actors facing unsustainable conventional dominant agri-food system. This requires to specific technological, organisational and social innovations as well as regulatory and policy adaptations to widely deliver food in a fair and sustainable way. -Inspire and encourage larger actors to down-scale conventional food value chains and better address the growing need of consumers to consume local high quality and safe products. The emergence of intermediate food value chains should put pressure on dominant actors, forcing them to align with best practices in terms of offering opportunities to local suppliers and ensuring an equitable distribution of costs and benefits. The main goal of FAIRCHAIN is to test, pilot and demonstrate recently developed technological, organisational and social innovations, realising a shift up to TRL7 and enabling small and mid-sized actors to scale-up and expand the production of affordable nutritious food in competitive intermediate food value chains. FAIRCHAIN will address the dairy and fruit&vegetable sectors, which hold a strategic economic position in Europe. Both are prone to integrate a large variety of innovations, correspond to an increasing consumer demand for nutritious and healthy food and need to meet the challenge of sustainably delivering perishable commodities to consumers. FAIRCHAIN will consider the entire value chain. More focus is given to postharvest steps rather than the production step in itself because the power imbalances created in market relationships are mainly attributed to the increasing concentration in the processing and retail sectors in conventional food supply chains

WATSON provides a methodological framework combined with a set of tools and systems that can detect and prevent fraudulent activities throughout the whole food chain thus accelerating the deployment of transparency solutions in the EU food systems. The proposed framework will improve sustainability of food chains by increasing food safety and reducing food fraud through systemic innovations that a) increase transparency in food supply chains through improved track-and-trace mechanisms containing accurate, time-relevant and untampered information for the food product throughout its whole journey, b) equip authorities and policy makers with data, knowledge and insights in order to have the complete situational awareness of the food chain and c) raise the consumer awareness on food safety and value, leading to the adoption of healthier lifestyles and the development of sustainable food ecosystems. WATSON implements an intelligence-based risk calculation approach to address the phenomenon of food fraud in a holistic way. The project includes three distinct pillars, namely, a) the identification of data gaps in the food chain, b) the provision of methods, processes and tools to detect and counter food fraud and c) the effective cross border collaboration of public authorities through accurate and trustworthy information sharing. WATSON will rely upon emerging technologies (AI, IoT, DLT, etc.) enabling transparency within supply chains through the development of a rigorous, traceability regime, and novel tools for rapid, non-invasive, on-the-spot analysis of food products. The results will be demonstrated in 6 use cases: a) prevention of counterfeit alcoholic beverages, b) preservation of the authenticity of PGI honey, c) on-site authenticity check and traceability of olive oil, d) the identification of possible manipulations at all stages of the meat chain, e) the improved traceability of high-value products in cereal and dairy chain, f) combat of salmon counterfeiting.

According to“Europe 2020”the improvement of quality & efficiency in education and training procedures & equality of all EU citizens in terms of quality of life”is strongly highlighted; healthy eating through safe-for-consumption meals is undeniably an important contributor to healthy lives. In this context, food-borne disease outbreaks, which are a constant public health threat, should be decreased or eliminated. Thus, all food hazards have to be appropriately managed as determined by scientifically proven meal processing. Since food hazards to a great extent are attributed to inappropriate preparation & processing and “cross contamination” phenomena, we propose that the most efficient way of dealing with the problem is to limit the problems through training food handlers (the e-SAFE target group). Nonetheless, EU & national legislation for training of employees involved in food handling is limited, as employees are obliged to attend “Food Safety/Hygiene” seminars and training courses only in the context of basic education, which does not include recent food safety developments. ; hence, there is particular need for improving related skills/knowledge to sufficiently implement all Food Hygiene/Safety Systems in food handlers daily working practices”.The e-SAFE project aims through transnational collaboration to provide modern, tailored made training to professionals working in the food preparation industry, focusing on emerging, re-emerging and persisting food hazards in meal preparation, taking also into consideration the needs created from the current coronavirus pandemic. Food handlers are front line employees that make certain that food remains available for the general public. A lot has been said concerning safety of food items in relation to COVID-19 hence the current project is even more relevant to the current situation. The specific objectives of e-SAFE are to: a) provide an innovative food hygiene and safety training program & e-learning tool on food handling/preparation focusing on the prevention of recently identified and non-widely known food hazards, b) motivate & raise compliance/adherence to safer handling/processing/storage techniques for all EU food handlers/suppliers so as to avoid potentially less known food hazards, c) create a training package that can be incorporated in similar training programs in the field of food safety/quality & exploited by VET providers & institutions in this domain.The consortium comprises 6 partners from 6 EU countries (Poland, Greece, Austria, Lithouania, Italy & Cyprus). The partnership brings together scientific and research organizations, being active in food safety/hygiene aspects & vocational training.The principle e-SAFE target group includes:•chefs, kitchen staff, food handlers, outlet managers and agri-food processing employees associated with meal production/storage/distribution:30 food handlers attending the face-to-face blended mobility seminar; ≥120 food handlers attending distance learning (e-learning platform, pilot testing);•Policy makers & relevant stakeholders:>190 subjects (i.e. professionals, leaders in food industries, policy makers) attending the Info Days.The methodology of e-SAFE is organized as following:1. Conceptual framework for training chefs, kitchen staff & food handlers, through review of educational and training opportunities around Europe and a questionnaire survey evaluating food handlers’ knowledge gaps and needs.2. Training curriculum Methodology to guide the development of the training modules and material, including the training objectives, description of each training unit, means of acquiring knowledge, duration of theoretical and practical training hours, etc. 3. e-SAFE Training package development, including modules on food safety, hygiene and quality aspects and their health impact, as well as emerging/re-emerging and persistent food hazards etc. (70% practical assignments - 30% theoretical inputs).4. e-learning platform, a virtual learning environment with all the modules adapted in the previous section, providing additional learning opportunities and accommodating transportation difficulties, needs and hectic schedules of the target group5. Guidance and recommendations for VET trainers on how to implement the gained knowledgeExpected results include i) review of the educational and training opportunities around Europe, ii) assessment of the current food handling knowledge and needs, iii) development of an innovative training tool based on interactive/motivational educational techniques suitable for adults to deliver skills and competences to the target group through face-to-face and e-learning platform. e-SAFE aims at increasing knowledge, capacity building and raising awareness among food handlers on food hazards, widely affecting public health.